Richard Ortega & La Jugada held their debut concert at Club Mambo in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 28, 2010. Here's the full report with video.
The day started early since most of the band was taking a minivan from Stockholm to Copenhagen, a 7-hour trip. At 6:45am Yanesito, Yudit and I headed out from "Söder", southern Stockholm, to pick up Calixto, Lily, Yarién and Calixto's drums/timbales. Fitting all the instruments in the back of the van was a little like one of those "teambuilding" exercises that they do at company conferences. We had Yanesito's amplifier and bass, Calixtos drums and timbal, which in themselves take up more than half of the space, as well as Richard's piano and keyboard and a few carry-on-sized suitcases. It all worked out but there was only seating for 8 people. Fortunately there were only 6 of us on the way down because Frank Beliser flew down, Pepe Espinosa was in Malmö, just 30 minutes from Copenhagen by train, and Richard had gone to Copenhagen the night before to do another rehearsal with the trombones, Carlos Pérez and Jakob Johansen of Grupo Danson.
The trip went smoothly and uneventfully. We arrived in Copenhagen at about 3:30pm, dropped off the band at the hotel and passed by the train station to pick up Richard and Frank who had gone there to meet Pepe. After check in we went straight to Club Mambo to get the instruments set up and ready for the soundcheck. The most stressful part of the entire trip was probably the parking situation in Copenhagen where there is almost no place you can legally park and the downtown area is a maze of one way streets which makes it almost impossible to find your way back to where you came from. To be perfectly honest, the only way Richard was able to do it was by driving the wrong way down a one way street. In the end we were lucky and didn't get any tickets.
During the soundcheck Jorge Egües came by and brought along a few members of Buena Vista Social Club who were in town for a concert on the 29th. The soundcheck was supposed to be from 5.00pm-7.00pm according to the information we had received, but at 6.30pm just as we were ready to run through a couple of songs, guests started arriving for dinner and we were cut off after only about 5 minutes. The soundman does a lot of work with Club Mambo so in spite of the short soundcheck, the audio turned out good, with the exception of a problem with feedback that occurred during Chipi chalapi, the first song of the second set.
Here is a little video summary of the day's events leading up to the concert.
The day started early since most of the band was taking a minivan from Stockholm to Copenhagen, a 7-hour trip. At 6:45am Yanesito, Yudit and I headed out from "Söder", southern Stockholm, to pick up Calixto, Lily, Yarién and Calixto's drums/timbales. Fitting all the instruments in the back of the van was a little like one of those "teambuilding" exercises that they do at company conferences. We had Yanesito's amplifier and bass, Calixtos drums and timbal, which in themselves take up more than half of the space, as well as Richard's piano and keyboard and a few carry-on-sized suitcases. It all worked out but there was only seating for 8 people. Fortunately there were only 6 of us on the way down because Frank Beliser flew down, Pepe Espinosa was in Malmö, just 30 minutes from Copenhagen by train, and Richard had gone to Copenhagen the night before to do another rehearsal with the trombones, Carlos Pérez and Jakob Johansen of Grupo Danson.The trip went smoothly and uneventfully. We arrived in Copenhagen at about 3:30pm, dropped off the band at the hotel and passed by the train station to pick up Richard and Frank who had gone there to meet Pepe. After check in we went straight to Club Mambo to get the instruments set up and ready for the soundcheck. The most stressful part of the entire trip was probably the parking situation in Copenhagen where there is almost no place you can legally park and the downtown area is a maze of one way streets which makes it almost impossible to find your way back to where you came from. To be perfectly honest, the only way Richard was able to do it was by driving the wrong way down a one way street. In the end we were lucky and didn't get any tickets.
During the soundcheck Jorge Egües came by and brought along a few members of Buena Vista Social Club who were in town for a concert on the 29th. The soundcheck was supposed to be from 5.00pm-7.00pm according to the information we had received, but at 6.30pm just as we were ready to run through a couple of songs, guests started arriving for dinner and we were cut off after only about 5 minutes. The soundman does a lot of work with Club Mambo so in spite of the short soundcheck, the audio turned out good, with the exception of a problem with feedback that occurred during Chipi chalapi, the first song of the second set.
Here is a little video summary of the day's events leading up to the concert.
Behind the scenes with La Jugada
The concert began at about 11:45pm. It was held as two sets of 45 minutes. I have to be honest and tell you that we were nervous about how many people would show up at the concert. After all, we are a new group, and we were performing the day before the world-famous Buena Vista Social Club. We were very happy to see that the concert was well-attended with a surprisingly large percentage of Danes in the audience. Some of them were obviously new to the salsa scene and were a little timid about dancing giving the stage a wide berth at first, but as the concert went on they couldn't resist the tumbaos and soon the dancers were bumping into me as I stood up front filming. There were also a large number of Cuban musicians from Copenhagen at the concert such as Jorge Egües, Charlie Ibañez, Edwin, Yasser Morejon, Tony Moreaux, Carlito, as well as some of the Buena Vista Social Club members such as bongocero Alberto "La Noche" Hernández Plasencia, pianist Rolando Luna and bassist Pedro Pablo.
Richard opened the concert with the tumbao from Manana, guaranteed to catch the audiences' attention, which then segued into Mi nuevo sabor, a song in which the three singers share the lead vocals. The second song was La Cosa, the most romantic song in the Jugada repertoire for the time being. Yarién sings lead and at the concert he added a short rap section where he asked Frank for a little advice on what to do since the girl he's crazy about left him. Yarién is known in the rap world as "El Yoruba" but with La Jugada he really proves that he is a versatile performer who can sing lead, coro or rap. You can see for yourself in the video below.
Yarién Oviedo sings La Cosa
No entiendo is one of the three demos we recorded in September and has been very popular with the timberos, especially in Italy and Canada where it seems to be the favorite of the three songs. I personally think it's refreshing to have a song from the woman's point of view and Lily lays it down nicely with guías such as "la gente anda diciendo que tu campana no suena que pena me da contigo y tu juego de novena" that fits right in wth the coro "Perdedor, terminó. Perdiste tu juego en la novena, se acabó". You can listen to No entiendo demo in the music player in the right-hand column of this blog, above.
Frank was up to bat next with the break-up song Ya te olvidé, although to be honest if someone writes a song about you they obviously haven't forgotten you, but that aside, this song has a beautiful melody, nice guías and coros such as "ya te olvidé, niña pasó tu momento, y ahora tengo otra chica que ahoga mis sentimientos" or a little more duro "ahora llegó la hora, ahora sigue tu camino se acabó tu cuarto de hora".
It's a pleasure to to have Calixto Oviedo and Pepe Espinosa playing together but as always it's hard to get a look at the percussion in action behind the singers. But during this song I did try a little bit to get a look at them. Check them out at around 4:40.
Frank Beliser sings Ya te olvidé
Yarién took the lead again with Apariencias, a song for all the faranduleras out there. Who says that a modern girl can't do a good job at school and still find time to farandulear? Not La Jugada - "ni la pintes, ni la cambies, déjala como está que a ella le gusta la farandula"! This is a fast-paced song and another dancefloor hit.
Richard decided to end the first set with a little taste of what was to come, so the band launched into the coro of Chipi chalapi before leaving the stage for a little refreshment. Twenty minutes later they were back with the full-length Chipi chalapi which we can't share with you as video here due to some feedback problems that were resolved before the second song of the set, but you can listen to the demo in the music player above. The name is a bit strange but chipi chalapi is a slang term sort of like gossip.
The only song in La Jugada's repertoire that isn't a composition of Richard's is El Reloj de Pastora. It's a traditional son montuno that happens to be a favorite of Richard's. Yarién sings lead showing his chops as a sonero. This song featured a piano solo by Richard and later a trombone solo by Carlos Pérez.
And now back to Lily. She sang the last two songs of the evening and they are two hardcore, rumba-influenced songs. First came Refranes, the newest of La Jugada's songs written by Richard only a month before the concert. It has a tasty guaguancó intro and as the name indicates, it is a song about how Afro-Cuban sayings are passed from generation to generation forming part of the Cuban consciousness, and working their way into so many Cuban songs. Refranes is about 8 minutes long but at the concert it went on for over 15 minutes. During the second coro Rolando Luna came on stage and took over the piano. At first Richard took the opportunity to play the keyboard but the angle of leaning over Rolando to reach the keyboard wasn't very comfortable to he went to direct the gears from center stage. Not long thereafter Pedro Pablo joined in at took a turn on Yanesito's bass. The last coro is "Corre el agua, core le agua, corre el agua Yemayá, corre el algua" and as happens in Havana, Lily took her water bottle and splashed the audience a little. But they were obviously not familiar with this baptismal ritual and looked a bit bemused. The video below has been edited down to about 7 minutes but you get a good overview of the new song.
Lily Hernández sings Refranes
And now back to Lily. She sang the last two songs of the evening and they are two hardcore, rumba-influenced songs. First came Refranes, the newest of La Jugada's songs written by Richard only a month before the concert. It has a tasty guaguancó intro and as the name indicates, it is a song about how Afro-Cuban sayings are passed from generation to generation forming part of the Cuban consciousness, and working their way into so many Cuban songs. Refranes is about 8 minutes long but at the concert it went on for over 15 minutes. During the second coro Rolando Luna came on stage and took over the piano. At first Richard took the opportunity to play the keyboard but the angle of leaning over Rolando to reach the keyboard wasn't very comfortable to he went to direct the gears from center stage. Not long thereafter Pedro Pablo joined in at took a turn on Yanesito's bass. The last coro is "Corre el agua, core le agua, corre el agua Yemayá, corre el algua" and as happens in Havana, Lily took her water bottle and splashed the audience a little. But they were obviously not familiar with this baptismal ritual and looked a bit bemused. The video below has been edited down to about 7 minutes but you get a good overview of the new song.
Lily Hernández sings Refranes
Lily closed the show with Manana, which you can hear from the demo in the music player above. It is another Afro-Cuban inspired song that celebrates the combination of Spanish with African that resulted in the rich Cuban music culture: "África me dio, España también pero Cuba me dio manana, sentimiento y me dio el iré". This song has some great 6/8 abakuá efectos during the bomba and flautist Charlie Ibañez was inspired to dance a little columbia. Yasser Morejon came up on stage and took a turn on bass as well.
All good things come to an end as did this, our debut concert. It was really a fun experience for the band. Club Mambo is an intimate venue with a great audience and the La Jugada couldn't have asked for a better start. All our love to the people of wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen!
All good things come to an end as did this, our debut concert. It was really a fun experience for the band. Club Mambo is an intimate venue with a great audience and the La Jugada couldn't have asked for a better start. All our love to the people of wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen!
